Surprises
by neverbirds
Summary: No, Lisbon didn’t find it surprising that he was good in bed. Like when solving cases, like when playing one of his tricks, he knew how to push all the right buttons.' Jisbon loveliness.


_I own nothing. Characters belong to the lovely CBS. I don't even own the words, you can thank the dictionary for those._

_I'm English, so I haven't seen all of the season yet, so if the characters are a little out of it then that's my excuse. Oh, and I'm 15, so be nice, my poor teenage heart can't handle flames. First ever mentalist fanfiction, first fanfiction since I was about 13, so yes. But enough excuses. R&R an' all._

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Lisbon wasn't surprised the first time she realised she liked Patrick Jane.

His touch had electrified her. She wasn't surprised then, either - he tended to have that effect on women. A bitter thought of how she always gets caught in bloody explosions whispered across her consciousness, but Jane's fingers on her face soon distracted her away from self-pity. Her eyes were tight shut, but she could tell they were his fingers from the way he brushed her temple like she was made of glass. She tried to smile. He wasn't the only one who could read people, after all. It took her a moment to realise he was shouting her name. My eyes are open, I am awake, I'm not hurt. The words wouldn't escape over her lips, but when his smile swam into focus, she realised that he already knew. His lips hovered over her hair for the briefest of seconds, and when he pulled away, Lisbon realised that it's not platonic to wish for those lips to be on other parts of her body.

She wasn't surprised when she heard him arguing with her colleagues about her.

She had never thought the walls were thick enough in her unit, but suddenly, she didn't seem to mind. Why don't you just go and kiss her, Van Pelt was gushing. Rigsby agreed whole-heartedly, it seemed, but Jane called him a hypocrite and she could hear his embarrassed silence from the other side of the door. Jane explained rationally to them that she was a woman with many barriers, and he didn't want to try anything for fear of hurting her, as much as he would like to kiss her – the last point being directed at Van Pelt, of course. Cho retorted, the laugh evident in his monotone, that he didn't want to try anything because he didn't know if Lisbon liked him back. I thought you knew everything, he grinned. There were a slight pause, and Lisbon wished more than anything that she could see his expression. I like knowing more than you for once, Cho continued, and nothing more was said on the matter. No one seemed to notice when Lisbon was smiling for the rest of the day; it was like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, a well-received confirmation of what deep down, she had already known.

It didn't surprise her that Jane smiled when he kissed.

One of the things she loved most about him was his smile. Flashing his teeth at every possible moment, especially to annoy her, she found. Making everything fun, acting like a child and all the time, still goddamn smiling. His lips spreading across his face whenever she stepped into his line of sight, like she was the sunshine poking her head around an angry huddle of rain clouds. The smile he used to disarm suspects, the smile he used to seduce women, the smile he used when he was triumphant and liked to show it. The smile he reserved her eyes only. So it didn't surprise her that when he kissed her, he smiled against her lips. He was happy, after all.

No, Lisbon didn't find it surprising that he was good in bed.

Like when solving cases, like when playing one of his tricks, he knew how to push all the right buttons. He responded to her every touch like a mirror, he fitted to her like an old jumper that you turned to for comfort, like a man does to a woman when it's the only way he can express how he feels. It was exactly like how she had always imagined it: perfect. She was never going to admit how good he was, not ever. Besides – he probably already knew. He had access to her innermost thoughts, she laughed to herself as he clung to her small frame long after his breathing had slowed and his mind had detached itself to god knows where.

The way he proposed to her didn't surprise her in the slightest.

He positively beamed at her after she tackled a suspect to the floor and asked for pizza afterwards. Her eyes kept slipping shut, he had to keep kissing her softly to jolt her awake. You're tired, he told her. No shit Sherlock, she yawned back. He collapsed on the grass behind the home they shared together, no smiling red faces on the walls and empty rooms or memories of blood and vengeance, just a white picket fence and easy access to her pony. He pulled her down with him, and by the time she'd adjusted herself on her elbows he had nearly finished his first slice. She punched him lightly in the arm and thanked him for getting her favourite. She had never even told him she liked pepperoni best but, no, that didn't shock her in the slightest either. They laughed and kissed and ate, and she was happy. It was normal, familiar. She could tell the heartfelt caresses and laughter were becoming familiar to him, too. He looked into her eyes with his ice-filled gaze that scrutinised her at every given moment - but not today. He asked her like she asked for the pizza, just a simple statement that filled her with such joy that she felt like she was going to burst. I want to marry you. No, it wasn't how she had imagined it, but she never pictured him going down on one knee either. When she thought about it later, with him smiling against her neck and his seed drying between her thighs, it was exactly how he should have proposed. Like it was fact, an observation he thought she should already know. Arrogant git, she projected out loud, and she could tell he'd never been happier either.

It never surprised her that he never told her he loved her.

After all, she never said it either. Some things just didn't need to be said, she realised. He couldn't say it, he couldn't – even when they said their own vows, he never spoke the word. When he kissed her, held her, she could feel his guilt crawling underneath his skin like cancer, like a disease she just wanted to rip out of his body so she could be entirely his. Patrick never caught Red John. She had held his hand the entire time he had painted over the red face in a patronising white, tears running down both of their faces. Yes, he loved her. She could tell every time he told her she was beautiful or stroked her hair, every time he stared at her when he thought she wasn't paying attention. It, was ok that he never said the words out loud. Deep down, she had always known that he never would.

She wasn't surprised when he broke down into tears when he set eyes on their new born daughter. They named her after his first wife. Patrick had joked that if it was a boy they should call him John, but there was no humour in his voice. He scared her, worried her sick that he would return to how he used to be, filled with so much hate and bloodthirst. She was terrified that carrying his baby girl would make him hate her in ways she couldn't comprehend, for replacing his wife, for trying to build a life with him for herself when the love of his life had lost hers. For a moment, for a split second, she could see it in his eyes that he did. But when blue eyes met blue eyes, he cried and kissed his baby's hair, the same as he had to Lisbon when all of this started. And in that fraction, that tiny percent of his life, he had received his closure. He had moved on.

She wasn't surprised when they gradually grew old together and she was by his grave in what seemed like a heartbeat.

Even in her old age, with her greying hair and lining face, she didn't allow herself to cry. She choked back the emotion, the knowledge that he had died peacefully, with her hand in his, that knowledge safe in her heart. She missed him. God, she missed him. She sat numbly at his funeral, telling him for the first time in half a century that she would never stop loving him. She had fretted and wringed her hands and played with her fingers every time they went on a case, every time he had left the house, long after he had been fired from the CBI and after she resigned. She had realised a long time ago that he would go before her; nobody can be that full of life, nobody can have a flame burn that bright without the candle melting before she ever really had time to express to him what he meant to her. His ever-arrogant smile had never let her know that he already knew just how much he did mean. Had meant. So when her brittle fingers let the soil fall onto his coffin, she regretted not spending every single day letting herself become encompassed by him, never let herself just_ be _because of him. She was angry at herself, because she had never known this much pain and hurt and anger and _emotion_ before in her life. She finally understood how he had felt, all those years ago, when he saw the note on the door and the face that would haunt him until this day, his funeral. The only time she let herself cry was when Van Pelt silently held her hand at the wake and she realised that he was with the real love of his life in heaven right now, reunited once more, the perfect fairytale ending.

She wasn't surprised when he met her in heaven a few years later. He kissed her on the lips, and they were as they were when they first met, his hair blonde again, her face without lines and the passion reignited in their kiss. But your wife, she whispered against his lips. He smiled against her lips just like he always had, and he told her that she hadn't been his wife in a long time. Her eyes filled with tears, Lisbon asked Jane why he loved her.

The only time he ever surprised her, was when he replied that she found new ways to surprise him, every single day.


End file.
